Saturday July 21, 2007
Harry Potter and the ugly price war
By M. KRISHNAMOORTHY and MANJIT KAUR
KUALA LUMPUR: As avid fans of Harry Potter await the highly-anticipated finale scheduled to be released for sale at 7.01am today, a price war has brought about an unexpected twist – four major bookstore chains have decided to not sell the book.
MPH, Popular, Times and Harris bookstores have decided to withdraw the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows novel from their shelves in protest against Tesco and Carrefour's move in selling the novel at a much cheaper price of RM69.90. The retail price of the book is RM109.90.
However, those who had pre-ordered their books will be able to collect them from today.
According to a source, the hypermarkets have limited copies, and they would “most probably” be sold out by noon.
Representatives of the four bookstores yesterday issued a statement to not sell the book in protest against the “indiscriminate price discount.”
MPH chief operating officer Patricia Chen said the decision was also to show the solidarity of the bookstore chains in maintaining their integrity.
“This means the book will no longer be available at these stores nationwide from tomorrow following the worldwide release and all events related to Harry Potter (from today) will be cancelled,” she said at a press conference yesterday.
Asked if their decision was to pressure the book's distributor, Penguin Books, to remove the books from the hypermarkets, she said: “It's not fair to allow hypermarkets to sell such a popular book when they are not in the book business.
“We will not short-change our customers. We will honour the sale to our customers who have pre-booked. The book can be collected from our shops from tomorrow onwards.”
On whether they had contacted Penguin, Chen said Penguin had responded by saying that it was not aware of the hypermarkets' pricing.
Carrefour Malaysia corporate communications and public relations manager Yuswanis Yusof said it wanted to provide the best for its customers.
Besides selling groceries and other essential products, the hypermarket wanted to provide a chance for customers to buy the book at a lower price, she said.
She added: “It all depends on how one markets and promotes one's products.”
Tesco Malaysia division manager Janice Chan said it wanted to make sure its customers could read the book at a cheaper price.
“We are popular for selling products at a lower price and books are no exception. The other retailers have their own marketing strategies by providing freebies and other promotions ... this is our way of pleasing our customers,'' she added.
Penguin Singapore and Malaysia managing director Eddy Teo said the hypermarkets would incur losses by selling the novel at a cheaper price, pointing out that their purchase price was actually higher.
He said there would be no replenishment on top of the opening order due to unavailability of stocks and the British publisher of the novel, Bloomsbury, had no plans for reprints now.
Teo expressed confidence that readers would still choose to buy their book from the retailers.
“Avid fans are looking for a magical atmosphere rather than just cheap price,” he said in Singapore yesterday.
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